Donnie Drew and David Cash may have retired as principals of Commerce High School and Commerce Elementary School respectively, but students and staff won’t be able to tell any difference when school starts in August.

That’s because both Drew and Cash are back at their jobs – hired as “49-percent” principals Monday night by the Commerce Board of Education.

Budget-wise, it’s a bargain for the school system. It pays both less than half of their previous salaries and funds no benefits. For Drew and Cash, between their retirement benefits and their salaries, they come out ahead financially as well.

Drew and Cash were not the only 49-percent personnel approved Monday night. Following a lengthy closed-to-the-public session, the board also approved the hiring of Dianne Cotrell and Tonya Ladd as 49-percent fourth-grade teachers and Mona Haynes as the 49-percent director of instructional technology.

The board accepted the retirements of Drew, Cash and Haynes — 95 years of educational experience — in May.

Drew will also continue to serve as the athletic director at CHS.

For the full story on the Commerce Board of Education meeting Monday night, see the July 16 issue of The Commerce News.

So just how does it work out for the taxpayer? Congrats to Drew and Cash, they deserve it for their long service, but the news statements are contradictory: "Budget-wise, it’s a bargain for the school system. It pays both less than half of their previous salaries and funds no benefits. For Drew and Cash, between their retirement benefits and their salaries, they come out ahead financially as well". A guess would be that they will receive a school system pension plus a social security pension eligibility plus medicare health coverage added to the 49% new salary. That's all well and good, but won't the school pension and new salary amount come eventually from the same taxpayer pot? Isn't that the same as "double-dipping"? Why else would the Board consider this in a "closed-to-the-public" session? Are the 49%ers entitled to raises, paid vacations, expense accounts, etc? There may be valid explanations for this, but cloak-and-dagger meetings usually mean that something may not be clean in the milk. Just saying...

Teacher retirement comes out of the teachers' checks. A certain percentage is taken and put into TRS. Most personnel decisions are behind closed doors, this is nothing new and takes place in most school systems.

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